


Back to Normal (More or Less)

by katikat



Category: Crush (2013)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Flashbacks, Past Sexual Assault
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-22
Updated: 2018-05-22
Packaged: 2019-05-10 04:50:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14730266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katikat/pseuds/katikat
Summary: Andie’s locked away and everything’s going smoothly for Scott. Or not. (Unbeta'd)





	Back to Normal (More or Less)

**Author's Note:**

> At first, I wanted to use this idea in the Truth Matters fic but that one already dealt with a heavy subject - victim blaming - so to add this would’ve been, well, too much. So, I took this bit out completely, streamlined that fic, and wrote a second, both with clear, straightforward subjects.

Everything’s back to normal, it seems. Scott’s back in school, his leg’s healing nicely, though he still needs to use crutches, and Andie’s locked up, safely away from him, far,  _far_ away…

_So why?_

They’re kissing, he and Jules. Kissing and stroking each other, gently at first but with more and more insistence. She straddles him, laughing, and he holds her by the hips, kneading gently, looking up at her with everything he feels for her in his eyes. And then she bends down, kissing him again, and she runs her hands lower and lower and–

And suddenly, he can’t  _breath_. And it’s not because of passion or lust. It’s  _fear_ , bone deep dread that squeezes the air out of his lungs, and he freezes, every muscle in his body turns taut as a wire, and though he can feel his eyes grow wide and wider still, he doesn’t see Jules anymore or his room but…

Scott’s back in the dark, damp basement, back  _there_ , and it’s Andie and not Jules who’s leaning over him, kissing him,  _touching_ him. And he can’t move, his every thought is sluggish, his body unresponsive, the drug she injected him with still too potent, still too settled in his joints, locking him in place, his body his very own prison within a prison, while his mind’s whispering, begging,  _No, please, don’t…_

“No!”

* * *

When Scott comes to, he’s curled up on his left side - his injured leg’s screaming with pain - and he’s covering his head with his arms as if he’s bracing himself for an attack, as if there’s something,  _someone_ bad there with him, in his bedroom, someone else who’s  _not_ Jules, because Jules would never hurt him!

He drops his arms slowly and opens his eyes to see her, Jules, sitting on the floor by his bed, chin pillowed on her arms, crossed and resting on the edge of the mattress. She’s watching him with big, worried eyes, there and close but refraining from touching him.

“Hey,” she whispers gently. “You okay?”

Scott pulls his arms close to his chest, hugging himself, because suddenly, he feels  _so cold_. And only then does he realize that he’s trembling. Stifling a groan, he straightens his injured leg to relieve the pain in his knee, and only then does he answer. “What happened?” he croaks out quietly.

Their faces are maybe a foot away from each other so he hears her well even though she keeps whispering; he wonders if she’s afraid to spook him and he hopes  _he_ didn’t spook  _her_. “I think you had a flashback to,  _you know_ ,” she replies, leaving the sentence hanging in the air, unfinished.

Frowning, Scott shakes his head. “I don’t-that doesn’t happen to me,” he insists.

Jules smiles gently, then she lifts one hand and reaches out to him - only to pause, hand hovering, waiting for his permission. When he snuggles closer, seeking out her touch, she runs her fingers through his tousled hair. “Well, apparently, you do and it does now.”

He squeezes his eyes shut for a second. “I’m sorry.”

She cups his face and runs a thumb across his cheekbone. “Don’t be. It’s not your fault.”

Scott sighs and opens his eyes to look at her. “But I don’t get it. Why  _now_? I’m safe -  _we_  are safe - Andie’s gone, if we’re lucky she’ll never get out, so…  _why_?”

Jules shakes her head. “I don’t know. Brain’s a mysterious thing, yours in particular.” She raps her knuckles against his skull gently.

“Hey,” he exclaims softly in mock offense, enjoying her wide smile.

She keeps stroking him gently when she asks, “What did you see?”

He closes his eyes and shudders a little. “I was back there, with  _her_. She drugged me and I couldn’t move but I felt her, I felt her kissing me, touching me…” He shudders again. “It’s just flashes, you know, there’re things I can’t remember. I don’t know if we-if we–”

Jules presses her finger to his lips, silencing him, and he looks at her. “There’s no ‘we’ in that equation, Scott. Even if…  _that_ happened, there would still be no ‘we’. There’s no ‘we’ when you can’t refuse, when you can’t say  _no_.”

This time when he shudders, frost runs up his spine. He hopes - and prays - that nothing like that happened but he can’t remember. There’re holes in his memory and that terrifies him.

“I’m sorry for putting all this on you,” he tells her.

Jules props her head up, her fist against her temple, and shrugs. “Andie messed up both our lives pretty well. I can’t sleep in the dark anymore, not after she tried to suffocate me back at the party. Darkness gives me nightmares,” she admits and goes back to running her fingers through his hair.

That surprises Scott. And suddenly, he feels selfish. There were more people than just him affected by what Andie did. “Are you okay? Why didn’t you tell me?” he asks, upset.

“I’m fine. A little sleep-deprived but fine,” she assures him. “And it seemed you had enough on your plate as it was. I didn’t want to add to that.”

He snorts a little. “Aren’t we a pair?”

She smiles at him.

Then he sighs and turns serious again. “Maybe-maybe I should talk about it to someone? Like a shrink or-or I don’t know.”

Jules pauses for second, staring at him searchingly. Then she returns to petting him again - it’s amazing how her touch can calm him down - and after a moment of thought, she nods. “That might be actually a good idea. For  _both_ of us. It’ll be  _interesting_ to explain that to my parents but–” She shakes her head. “I refuse to let that psycho keep messing with my -  _our_  - life.”

Scott nods and closes his eyes, enjoying her ministrations. He doesn’t like the idea, going to a  _shrink_ , but he likes the idea of freaking out on Jules even less. She deserves better.  _He_ deserves his life back.  _Yes_.

And so, next morning, during breakfast, Scott sets his fork aside, and after a deep, steadying breath, he says, “Dad, I need to talk to you about something…”


End file.
